I wonder how the jury would’ve decided if the accused were an all-black armed group that had taken over a wildlife refuge.
None of the accused would have made it to trial.
No way in hell.
That said, I’ve seen a few legal people I follow say that the government fucked up by going for conspiracy charges… and somehow that was linked to the gun charges. Which makes no fucking sense to me. How are they not separate charges?
This is a strange thing to think about.[quote=“Telefrog, post:341, topic:78001, full:true”]
I wonder how the jury would’ve decided if the accused were an all-black armed group that had taken over a wildlife refuge.
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This is the better counterpart and more likely to happen to.
No- but I could easily see a jury doing some nullification on that end as well.
I’ve seen discussion that there were agents in the compound and they were characterized as ‘agents provocateur’ and thus tainted the prosecution’s case. But the only cites I can find for that are wingnut websites.
So, honest question. And don’t take this to mean I support these guys. But if people are to exercise their Constitutional rights to stand up to the government, how exactly is that supposed to look? Protesting and peaceful discussion seems to get average people nowhere, because they don’t have billions of dollars and a huge corporation backing them up. Are people supposed to just let things continue going to shit and do nothing about it?
I ask because yeah, these guys are redneck militia people. But they didn’t hurt anyone. They thought they were doing the right thing. They didn’t take over a school full of children or something. They took over a building at a natural park for a month. Ok, so a few hippies were inconvenienced because they couldn’t go to the park or whatever for a while. Is that really a big deal?
I guess I just feel like the normal avenues people have to address their grievances broke down a long time ago. Rich get richer, poor get poorer, corporations run this country more and more, the government becomes more and more corrupt. Do we just wait patiently until it all falls apart then?
I’m pretty sure they destroyed sacred ground by bulldozing it and shitting on the remains. Or did I dream that?
Honestly? Like the Civil War for the most part. Only problem is, civilians don’t have access to military hardware, so good luck with that. Keep in mind they brought guns to prevent being arrested. Try that while committing a crime anywhere else. I’ll make sure to come to your probable funeral.
Historically bringing a weapon while committing a crime is an escalation. That’s why a lot of burglars historically wouldn’t do it armed - the penalty was much higher. This sets a precedent that if you want to commit a crime, you should go heavily armed. At least as long you’re white. I’m willing to be if the people in ND were armed they’d mostly be dead.
They took over a federal building. Destroyed federal land. Prevented federal employees from doing work. Went through documents… I mean we had this conversation here before. They didn’t just peaceful take a building… they showed up with guns and threatened people. if these people were brown, they’d be dead. As it is, most of them were taken alive and let off. So what’s next, where do you work and live. Should we send them over there for a few months?
I’ve still not heard any answers regarding how people are supposed to address their issues with our system, considering we’ve been given no other options at this point. We’re supposed to take a government seriously when it has two complete morons running for its highest office? When they blatantly take handouts from big corporations and lobbyists to cater to their interests instead of the interests of the people? It doesn’t take a genius to see the way we’re doing things isn’t gonna hold up more than another generation or two before it gets really really bad. If someone, not saying me or the militia rednecks, doesn’t stand up and do something about it what do we do? Like I asked before, do we just patiently wait around for the end to come? I’m not one to run around spouting stuff about the Constitution at people, but why do we fixate so much on certain rights granted by it and completely ignore others?
Maybe we should stand around with signs some more. Because that’s really doing a lot to get things back on the right track.
This might also set a precedent for the FBI- make sure in some cases it doesn’t go a jury.
I do think the ranchers are still facing state charges- and I’m sure they won’t get an all-white jury there.
Were you in the Black Lives Matter topic supporting that group too, which is largely unarmed. I don’t remember you being part of the discussion.
This would be completely different if this group went in unarmed… they didn’t.
Other than voting?
Yeah, that’s how democratic republics work. You get involved with the political process or other people do and you end up left out. Or wait till things reach a critical tipping point and you have enough people to do the armed revolution thing.
And let’s be honest, these guys are basically bitching that they don’t get something for free. Since it’s “public” land and they’re the “public” they should be able to use it. While also saying they don’t recognize any sort of government. Their argument is 90% bullshit and they went in with guns specifically to prevent being arrested.
Maybe all such protest groups should do that? BLM show up to a protest armed to the teeth and say they’ll shoot anyone who fucks with them. Maybe I think Citibank is part of the Illuminati, so I show up at their offices with 20 of my friends with a bunch of rifles and threaten to shoot any police that come to close. Hell, maybe that is the future of protesting with how the police are acting, but I’m betting almost everyone else who would try this would get shot and sure as hell wouldn’t get off scot free.
And let’s compare some other protests in the country shall we?
now let’s look at how they did with this armed protest
If they had been unarmed, the corrupt government they’re protesting against would have arrested them and completely negated their ability to protest. Doesn’t the Constitution grant us the right to bear arms to stand up to said corrupt government? Again, I’m not a big “OMG GET YER GUNS AND FIGHT THE MAN” kind of person, but I’m trying to make a point here. If people can’t fight back, we have no option but to stand around and wait for the end. All peaceful options have been completely negated by greed and corruption at this point.
It did that anyway. It even killed one of them. So… end result for them was they got really lucky and got off on a technicality.
I mean, I sort of get where you are coming from, but small groups using force to enact their beliefs is a bad thing. That’s how you get shit like the Klan running around lynching people. The government MUST respond to it and respond to it forcefully. Laws exist for a reason. Unless you want someone to decide the DMV is evil and take it by armed force. Or the Post Office. Because those people are out there and without the threat of death or imprisonment they’d happily be doing those sorts of things.
And that is the Sheriff that was publicly against the occupation too. This isn’t the Sheriff from John Day who was supporting the occupation.
I repeat, there was a Sheriff that was supporting these guys too.
Where in the US constitution is the right to “stand up to the government”? What does that even mean? Does keeping and bearing arms also cover taking over any place you want?
No, it grants you the right to bear arms in order to help maintain State security.
Look it up if you don’t believe me.